Unformed Landscape Read Online Free Page B

receipt for the fine. She felt sorry for the men with their hand-drawn calendars, on which they crossed off the days, and the weeks,and the months until they could go home again. But they had an apartment somewhere, maybe a wife, and one or two kids. They had chests where they kept their clothes, and walls where they had their pictures. They had what Kathrine no longer had.
    After Thomas had moved in with her, he had gradually taken over her life and her apartment. He had been generous, and bought expensive, new things. He hadn’t liked her furniture, he had mocked her collection of books until she gave them to the library or simply got rid of them. And every time they tidied up—and Thomas liked nothing better than spring cleaning—she noticed that something disappeared, until there was hardly anything left. A dust trap, he said. You never look at that, what’s the point of it. She had supposed that was love. She had thought they were building something together, but it was just Thomas building her into his life, trying to mold her, to train her, until she suited him, and suited the type of life he planned to lead. Until her own apartment was as foreign to her as his parents’ house, as he was, and as the life she led with him.
    Kathrine had been living in the fishermen’s refuge for four days when the letter came. She stayed another three. She didn’t go into the office anymore. She sat in her room, and only left it to get something to eat, in the afternoons, when there was hardly anyone left in the restaurant. Svanhilddidn’t ask any questions, but she was very friendly, sometimes she just stood next to the table while Kathrine was eating, without saying anything. After a week, Kathrine moved back into the apartment.
    She noticed right away that Thomas had moved out, that the apartment was empty, even though there was nothing missing. Presumably, he was back with his parents, in the rooms that had been set aside for the three of them, that he had fixed up weeks ago, and never wanted to show her. A surprise. Our nest, he had once said, a snug nest for us.
    Kathrine stood in the apartment, on which they had already canceled the lease. In two weeks, at the end of January, she would have to go. The potted plants were all dry, and presumably past saving. The key to the mailbox lay on the kitchen table. When Kathrine opened the fridge, a sour smell wafted out. She emptied the rest of a milk carton into the sink, picked up a half-eaten bar of chocolate, and sat down in the living room. She opened the mail from the past days, some junk mail, a Christmas card from Christian in Boulogne, France. It was pretty there, he wrote, but he was going back to Aarhus in a couple of days. Then Kathrine read the letter from Thomas’s family, which they had copied to her here as well. She read it again.
    “Hated Kathrine, how long have you been playing your mean games with our brother/brother-in-law/son? Are two lawful husbands not enough for you, must you amuse yourself with other men too, so blinded by lust that they agree to play your games? You go hopping from one bedto another, just exactly the way you feel like, and as fancy takes you. You’re a deceitful snake. In bygone ages, people would stone harlots like you, but we, we pray for you, that God in His great mercy may forgive you your unchastity.”
    Kathrine read the letter from beginning to end, read the signatures, every name, every letter. They had all set their names to it—Thomas’s parents, his sister Veronica, and Einar, his brother-in-law. Kathrine was put in mind of death announcements in the newspapers, in which brothers, sisters, children, nieces, and nephews all took their leave of the deceased. She herself was mother, daughter, sister-in-law, and daughter-in-law. A divorced and remarried wife. Then she thought of Einar, the brother-in-law. Einar, of all people. Kathrine laughed, and was surprised at the sound of her laughter in the quiet apartment. It wasn’t